After A Moment, the World Stops
by I Was NotA Robot
Summary: She's fire, but he's learned to walk through the flames.
1. This Cowboy is Running From Himself

_Lights_

It's been a day since he arrived in New York, and as he gazes up at the ginormous city of lights and noise and traffic and _people_ , despite his height, he feels truly dwarfed.

* * *

 _Love_

It's his first time on a subway (in New York), and as he looks into the eyes of a petite girl with a dimpled smile, long blonde hair, and eyes that seem to have devoured the world, he thinks he's fallen in love.

(That is until another girl with coco hair and doe-eyes is shoved into his lap, and the brief delusion ends almost as quickly as it began.)

* * *

 _Rude_

It has barely been a moment since he steps into this new, brightly lit classroom since he spies the same doe-eyed girl from the subway. Almost immediately he catches a glimpse of blonde hair and a dimpled smirk, and he feels a strange surge of excitement.

He's introduced to a pretty brunette by the name of Riley Matthews, and he can already tell that she's a darling, precious thing from the way she grins ear to ear and giggles shyly at nearly anything that moves.

The girl by her side is Hart. Maya Hart, and he doesn't know anything about her until she opens her mouth to speak.

* * *

 _Unexpected_

The two make an unlikely pair, Matthews and Hart, because they're nearly polar opposites. But he already knows from the way that Riley looks up at Maya with adoring (sometimes chastising) eyes, and Maya returns the glance, that the two are inspirable.

* * *

 _Settle_

When he first realizes that Riley Matthews is absolutely smitten with him, he's pleasantly surprised. He likes her too, or he could learn to anyway. She's fun and quirky and sweet – just the sort of girl he'd envisioned meeting since he was old enough to understand the concept of soulmates and romance. It could be worse, he supposes.

 _But it could be better._

* * *

 _Instinct_

When Maya Hart stands on her tiptoes and leans in close, it's only a split-second decision not to lean forwards (if he'd been in his right mind, he isn't sure whether or not he would have made the same decision).

* * *

 _Restraint_

Farkle is crumbling, and he's considering beating Billy to a pulp. Months of careful skirting around the rise of bubbling anger and sincere vows to his mother that he wouldn't get kicked out of this new school all go crashing down the drain in a whirl of cruel notes and words. But when he feels a small weight on his back, and two hands on his shoulders, he pauses.

He hears Maya Hart's voice in his ear, urgent and commanding, and he stops completely.

* * *

 _Legends_

He's told Zay about his friends. He didn't even intend to turn them into heroes, but once he rereads his texts, he realizes that it was effortless.

* * *

 _End_

When Riley Matthews kisses him on the subway, he closes his eyes and leans into the gesture. Just before his eyelids close and his vision is overcome with darkness, he thinks for a moment, _is this how it ends?_

* * *

 _Pieces_

She's so broken inside, really. He knows that she is lonely and battered, worn and torn, smooth and precious in the middle, and rough around the edges. What she hasn't realized yet is that the more windows she opens, the more light will shine through.

* * *

 _Beautiful_

Her blonde hair hangs long across her shoulders, beautiful to the naked eye. He recognizes her at once in her apparel, a delicate (and wild) piece of fabric that floats and flounces like the wisps of a ruby red cloud. As they jump in time to the music, he barely acknowledges her voice until it's half a moment too late – he can't remember his hasty and fumbled reply.

* * *

 _Genius_

It takes him three textbooks, one stray cat, two missent text messages, and four broken staplers for him to realize what a genius Farkle really was.

* * *

 _Fight_

They fight all the time, which expected of them. She is after all, quite a short stack of pancakes, and he is, undoubtedly, a Huckleberry (and always will be). But when a picture of them ends up in the yearbook, her face in his and a smile on his lips, the two fall into a silent agreement of shock. This was unexpected. And here they thought they were the only ones who noticed.

* * *

 _Sing_

When he first hears her singing, he pauses. Her window is shut and the shades are pulled down, but the echo of lovely notes can be heard clearly on the other side. He thinks he recognizes the tune, but she sings the melody so sweetly that for a moment, he believes the song belongs to her.

 _"Lady, running down to the riptide. Taking away to the dark side, I wanna be your left hand man. I love you, when you're singing that song and, I've got a lump in my throat, cause', you're going to sing the words wrong. I've got a lump in my throat because..."_

This time, he doesn't knock, but just sits and listens.

* * *

 _Hot_

Zay admits that Lucas had called Farkle a loyal genius, and Riley a pretty girl who helped her friends (that was true and shameless). When he told Maya what Lucas thought of her, he thought that the back of his neck couldn't get any hotter.

* * *

 _Chemistry_

It's science, and when he gets Maya Hart as his lab partner, he isn't sure whether to be secretly ecstatic or openly concerned (after all, the beauty was wild and untamable, unpredictable and fiery. Science experiments tended to react badly with fire).

But when he begins to learn things that he didn't even know before, suddenly getting an A isn't the only matter of importance to him.

* * *

 _Candle_

She's fire, and smoldering hot. She brings life (with the help of acrylics and tough love), and she also brings destruction (with the slam of a window and the turn of a heel). Around her, things either become bright and shiny, or burned to a crisp. He's handled much worse, but she's handled worse (rejection, neglect, disappointment). So far, he hasn't met one person who could hold a candle to her greatness. She's fire, but he's learned to walk through the flames.

* * *

 _Electric_

Anticipation dances through the air, and his class is pressed against the glass doors of the building, waiting for that final school bell to echo shrilly through the school. They've graduated, and when he notices the blond weaving in and out of the crowd of writhing students, he feels a slight tug in his chest.

As the bell screams in joy and the swarm of students spill out of the brick building and down the steps, Farkle darts past him and into the grass, Riley's hands clasped in his. Lucas watches the two tumble and laugh for a moment before he feels a hand on his shoulder.

He turns to see the dimpled smile and blonde hair and blue eyes (that must have seen the world and beyond) that started it all. She looks up at him, and for a moment he loses his breath.

The sun, fiery and hot, laughs down at him.

He feels electric.


	2. She's Been Living on the Highest Shelf

**This is Chapter Two! I wasn't sure whether I'd keep it a oneshot or not, but a sudden burst of inspiration hit me like a train on a track when I was listening to Vance Joy's Riptide, and I realized the subtle Lucaya parallels were screaming out to me (I have personally dubbed it their theme song - listen to the lyrics and see if you can totally envision the two. I can :).**

 **So, this one is a bit from Maya's point of view. The earlier chapter was quite focused on the ship, and there is a lot of Lucaya in this chapter, only it's bit more Maya centered.**

 **Enjoy :)**

* * *

 _I love you when you're singing that song and_

 _I've got a lump in my thoat, cause'_

 _You're gonna sing the words wrong_

 _I've got a lump in my throat cause'_

 _You're gonna sing the words wrong._

* * *

 _Acceptance_

Her best friend Riley Matthews is happy. She lives in a beautiful world full of butterflies and puppies and who knows what other kind of illusions.

She's the kind of person who believes in unicorns, and that the sun really is made of cheese. She believes that the world is a place where puppies really do get lost in puppy farms, and all fathers love their daughters. She makes her own assumptions about the world based on her limited experiences, and Maya really can't find the heart to dissuade her.

Riley Matthews is a dreamer.

Maya Hart likes to call herself a realist.

* * *

 _Wonderland_

School is not a joy. It's an obligation, a silent promise to her mother that she wouldn't set herself up for failure, and that she'd _try_ to experience things that Katy never could.

The hours tick on and on, and Maya knows that the long school year has just begun.

And then a tall, handsome stranger ducks his head through the doorway of the classroom, and she recognizes him as the boy from the subway. He smiles politely, nods, and looks around. She sees his eyes skim over Riley in recognition (and she notices her friend swell in adoration and bashfulness), and then blue collides with green.

When she looks into his eyes, all of a sudden, she knows what her mother means when she talks about staring into a world tempting and unknown.

* * *

 _Whole_

The last thing Maya Hart wants to do is get her hopes up.

Her father doesn't care. She's imperfect (she knows she is), and she's a rough draft, a screw up, a half-melted tin soldier with chipping red paint. Her father has a new family.

He doesn't really care, and she can't blame him. There are times when she stares through the darkness of her bedroom and night and up at the stars shaped in glowing neon paint that she wishes she was someone else entirely. Maybe she could forget everything she knew, forget everything she was, and be _whole._

But she's broken, and there's nothing she can do about it.

* * *

 _Comfort_

He's angry and full of heat, a side that she and Riley have never seen before (but she's always sensed it was there, just bubbling underneath the surface). By the spark in his eyes, and the tight curl of his fists, she knows that Lucas, the Lucas she knows (the Lucas she _thinks_ she knows), is about to do something horrible that he'll regret.

The rage she sees is a familiar kind of rage, and her next movement is a movement of pity and unexpected empathy.

When she jumps on his back, it's all she can do not to whisper, _"It'll be alright,"_ into his ear. But that's alright.

She thinks he gets the message.

* * *

 _Wrinkles_

It's been said that even something miniscule can become something big. It's called the butterfly affect.

The tip of an invisible cowboy hat, rose petals tickling her top lip, the breath of surprise when she leans into his face.

Maybe something as small as a crinkle of the nose or a laugh created this, like a chain reaction.

Maybe. Or maybe these small, small, not-so-small-moments lead up to something bigger, and better.

As they jump in time to the music, she can feel his eyes, hesitant, clear, transparent, on her. She can feel the warnings going off in her head - they're more like bombs, really. But she can already feel the familiar butterflies dancing in her stomach.

* * *

 _Unhappy_

Lucas and Maya know a little about everything, and everything about nothing.

Their relationship isn't sweet, and it isn't sour. When Lucas and Riley were _Lucas and Riley_ , Maya could see how they made sense. They made each other happy, and that was all that mattered. But after she stares in the mirror, a brown wig in her hands and a frown on her face, she starts to think that maybe happiness isn't the key to everything.

After Lucas and Riley become Lucas and Riley again, Maya can see the puzzle pieces reassembling themselves. She can see the bigger picture now, and it's bight and simple. But then a new picture emerges, and Maya is confused once again.

It's...complicated.

Together, they're a macrocosm, a beautifully complex system with a thousand and one galaxies and systems inside, waiting to be explored and examined in vivid detail.

She doesn't understand him half the time (or herself, for that matter), and she knows that he doesn't either. They're confusing and alive, which is one of the most exciting and dangerous ways to live. Maya Hart likes to pride herself on knowing all faucets of herself, no matter how gray and morose they were. This was one thing that she couldn't figure out.

But maybe examinations could wait. Because if she stands back, tilts her head, squints, and frames it with her fingers, she can start to see the whole picture.

* * *

 _Reassurance_

When she's alone, there's color splashed on the white walls of her room, and the scent of acrylics in her mind is stronger than she'll ever be.

" _There's this movie that I think you'll like. This guy decides to quit his job, and he heads to New York City, this Cowboy's running from himself. And she's been living on the highest shelf. Oh, and they come unstuck."_

It's a sunny afternoon, and she feels a soft presence on the other side of her window. She knows it's all in her head, but the corner of her mouth twitches.

In the vast emptiness of her room, she feels comforted. And for the first time in a while, she thinks that maybe, maybe it'll all be okay.

* * *

 _Family_

Her father is back, his suit and tie in place and his hair slicked back with an oily perfection, and then she feels her frailly constructed world come crashing down in shards of colored glass around her.

Riley freezes behind her, and she feels her take her fumbling hand in hers. Farkle's about to throw his textbook, which is large and old and weighs almost a quarter as much as he does. But he is nothing compared to Lucas's fury, which can be felt from all corners of the room.

With Riley and Farkle and Lucas by her side, she knows that this is not going to break her.

They won't let it.

* * *

 _Induratize_

She's made herself immune to care, immune to love, immune to comfort.

But when she grins at him and his eyes light up, when her lips form the words _what's up, Huckleberry_ , when he responds by tipping his imaginary cowboy hat and calls her _ma'am_ , she can feel her guard slip for the smallest of seconds.

She's afraid of him, in a way. Not because she thinks he'd hit her (no, he would _never_ hit her, he'd rather die a thousand times and then some before purple and red and black blossomed under his fists).

She's afraid of the way she's _happy_ , the way she knows that this is how it's meant to be, now and forever. Because believing in true love or soulmates or even _fate_ is Riley's job, and it always has been. Maya can't afford to show her bare self to a cowboy who doesn't even belong to her anyway.

* * *

 _Oblivious_

There's a winter dance coming up, and somehow between studying and flying snowballs, the four friends find time to turn stores inside out searching for Riley's dress (asking out Charlie Gardner is no small feat, according to her).

Maya Hart always prided herself for her observational skill and insightfulness. But after she easily dismisses Ranger Rick's gaping expression as she walks out of the dressing room clad in a slim black dress (at Riley's insistence), Riley scathingly replies that she's been too clueless to notice the Cowboy's pining.

Needless to say, the dress shopping ended with stomping and the slam of a door.

Maya was all too familiar with the latter.

* * *

 _Underestimate_

It's with pleasant surprise (and a touch of shame) that Maya Hart realizes that she greatly underestimated her best friend – though she always knew Riley wasn't stupid – she was the poster girl for academic intelligence.

However, it takes two weeks of sharpened pencils, rude awakenings, cupcakes, duct tape, and a single PowerPoint presentation to convince Maya that Riley Matthews was a million times more insightful than she'd originally believed her to be.

* * *

 _Diverse_

Auggie insists on watching a certain cartoon every Sunday on the Nickelodeon channel. _Avatar: The Last Airbender_ proves to be a surprisingly enduring TV show, once you got over the fact that it was on a kid's channel. It followed the tale of the Avatar, a being gifted with the ability to bend all four elements. As Maya would grudgingly settle down on the couch next to Auggie, a carton of caramel ice cream in her lap and remote in hand, she felt herself drawn to the plot and characters.

For the monks of the Air Nomads, finding peace and freedom was the key to solving all problems in life. Riley, in her bubbly optimism, clearly would've fit in swell.

Water was the element of change. Lucas, despite his past bad boy tendencies, had adapted pretty well into the Huckleberry she knew now.

Sokka was goofy, and it took a while for Maya to take him seriously. But later, as he took charge of battle plans and attacks, she began to recognize a strategist. A schemer – someone with focus, intelligence and the capability for great things. Farkle.

Toph, the bold Earthbender who could _clearly_ take care of herself, was undoubtedly Smackle.

The bending style that appealed to Maya was firebending. Besides the fact that the firebending protagonist, Zuko, was _ridiculously_ attractive for a kid's show, the concept fascinated her. Iroh had told (the incredibly attractive) Zuko that fire was the element of power. It could either destroy, or it could bring life.

Later, after the screen had turned black and the carton of ice cream was half-melted, Maya tried to tell herself that she was overanalyzing. It was only a stupid kid's show after all, she reasoned.

* * *

 _Ultimately_

They belong together, and everyone knows it (though they themselves won't accept it).

In every world, every parallel and alternate universe, blue eyes find blue, and then someone either gets lost, or someone finds their way.

In the end, it'll be Friar and Hart, the Cowboy and his Beauty.

* * *

 _Wildlife_

They were camping, and night had fallen. The campfire was a beautiful orange and red and gold, flickering and crackling through the air like a dancer.

I _was afraid of dentists and the dark_

 _Scared of pretty girls and starting conversations_

 _All of my friends are turning green_

 _You're the magician's assistant their dreams_

It's a heat-of-the-moment sort of thing, as most things with them often are. He's looking at her, and she's aware that her lips are parted, and then he leans down and she leans up and their eyes both flutter shut and -

 _I just wanna, I just wanna, I just wanna know, if you're gonna, if you're gonna stay._

 _I've just gotta, I've just gotta know._

 _I wouldn't have it, I wouldn't have it any other way._

This is a moment she wouldn't have expected.

 _"Why'd you do that?"_

* * *

 _Modification_

When the Friar and the Hart are paired together for yet another project, she gets the creeping suspicion that the teachers are doing it on purpose now (why? She can't figure it out).

She can't focus, because he's just so damn hilarious, and he doesn't even notice.

Between several home baked pies (from the formable and smiling Mrs. Friar), annoying knowing looks from several elderly couples on the subway, sheets upon sheets of white cardboard and box upon box of colored markers, bouts of uncontrollable laughter (from Maya, much to Huckleberry's mild irritation), and a ripped white canvas, she begins to realize that something's shifted, and so does he.

She feels herself becoming unearthed, and she spreads her arms towards the endless sky (that is him, him, because it has always been _him_ and she can barely remember the days when it wasn't).

* * *

 _Beginning_

It's graduation. Maya genuinely didn't think she'd make it, but she's been proved wrong time and time again over the past few years, and she's found that she doesn't always mind.

The school bell sings out shrilly, and cheers erupt in the air. Elated students burst through the doors, joyful screams filling the air.

Riley and Farkle tumble into the grass and out of her peripheral vision, too wrapped up in each other to be swept up in the swarm of classmates. Maya is too busy grinning ear to ear to follow them, and she allows herself to sigh into the bliss of it all.

 _I made it._

She casts her eyes to the blue, blue skies and reaches upwards, her fingertips nearly touching the clouds. She can feel the laughter bubbling up in her throat, and she gives a shout.

Just then, she remembers to look around around for a certain blue-clad-boy-from-Texas. After all, she thinks that she may have had an epiphany about him, and it only makes sense to seek him out. She searches for her Cowboy, and for one bare, split second, she thinks of the macrocosm and all of the stars and galaxies stretched within it. And then she spots him, and her heart skips a beat. Reaching out for a broad shoulder, she waits for him to turn.

She looks at him (blue, blue, bluer), and he looks at her ( a blue sky crashes with a green ocean), and for the millionth time in her life, she feels as though she's seeing him for the first time.

She can feel the sun laughing down at her.

* * *

 _Oh_

 _Oh, Ah_

 _And they come unstuck_

 _Lady running down to the riptide_

 _Taking away to the dark side_

 _I wanna be your left hand man_


End file.
